Grandstand... Axed

DMC

Bit of a bolt from the blue....

Game over for Grandstand

6pm
John Plunkett
Monday April 24, 2006

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1760449,00.html

BBC director general Mark Thompson will tomorrow announce the retirement of Grandstand, signalling the end of one of the BBC's most familiar programme formats after 48 years on air.

Once anchored by the likes of Frank Bough, David Coleman, Des Lynam and Steve Rider, the Grandstand brand will be phased out as part of a radical overhaul of BBC Sport's on-screen presentation.

What was once a single block of TV sport running under the Grandstand banner for the entire Saturday afternoon has already been broken down into component programmes such as Football Focus and Final Score, and the BBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games earlier this year quietly dropped the Grandstand brand altogether.

Big sports events such as the Grand National, the Derby, FA Cup football, England's home football internationals and Six Nations rugby union are also given their own programmes under the Grandstand banner. These major events will still appear on BBC1 on Saturday afternoons but not using the Grandstand name.

Mr Thompson is expected to make the announcement as part of his unveiling of the results of the BBC's radical "creative futures" review, aimed at adapting the corporation's programming and content to the challenges of the digital, on-demand world.

It is understood senior BBC executives believe the Grandstand brand and format had to change because of the new ways people were watching sport on the internet, mobile phones and on interactive TV.

For instance, viewers with digital TV have been able to watch round-the-clock coverage of the snooker world championship via their red button, while BBC1 and BBC2 returned to their normal schedules.

Research is understood to have shown that viewers associate the BBC Sport brand with cutting edge technology such as red button interactive services more than they do with Grandstand. The BBC still has a considerable portfolio of sports rights including Six Nations rugby, live England football, Wimbledon, Masters and Open Golf, the Olympics until 2012 and the football World Cup until 2014.

Mr Thompson will address staff with a wide-ranging package of changes tomorrow morning, with an announcement to the press expected at lunchtime.

The creative futures review looked at the BBC's future programming and content across its journalism, music, drama, knowledge building, comedy and children and teenagers, and mass market output.

At the heart of the review is expected to be an assumption that channels will diminish in importance, but commissioning and programme genres will become more important as licence fee payers access BBC output across a range of digital media, including via broadband and mobile.

Mossy Monk

they dont really show anything spectacular so i wont miss it at all

flogen

I guess it makes sense; kind of decentralising the sports output as viewers are offered a more specific choice through new media

crosstownk

It's been around for a long time - maybe it is time for something a little bit different.

DMC

They have been slowly strangling it for years, what with the growth of sports as "big huge events" like racing from Uttoxetter etc.. rather than have a compendium.

If you noticed over the past few years, if they concentrate on racing, they will now fill for two hours, rather than 10 mins Racing, 20 mins Swimming, 10 mins Racing, 20 mins Skiing, like they used to do.

Final Score was also marketed as a standalone programme in the last few years too.

Two problems that haven't helped Grandstand, I feel are, Rugby League becoming a summer sport, and the lack of Rugby Union (loss of Heineken Cup).

So this announcement, while surprising, isn't that shocking. They could've waited for its 50th in 2008, though.

DMC

DMC wrote:

They could've waited for its 50th in 2008, though.

And they haven't.

The last regular Saturday programme has just gone out... and tomorrow will see the last Sunday Grandstand too. They didn't even wait to phase it out, they're knocking it out cold right now.

Roger Mosey explains. Comments below lament.

Richard

DMC wrote:

And they haven't.

The last regular Saturday programme has just gone out... and tomorrow will see the last Sunday Grandstand too. They didn't even wait to phase it out, they're knocking it out cold right now.

Roger Mosey explains. Comments below lament.

Yes - it's a shame, really, though I was more surprised about the transformation of "Sport on 5" to "5 Live Sport" with the loss of the famous theme tune.

If they were going to axe Grandstand, it made sense to do it this week, though, as it would have been "Six Nations Grandstand" next week. Given that sports availability varies, it means that in the future, they won't have to pad too much.

fta keith

Remember RTE's version of grandstand called sports stadium which was axed with no outpouring of memories like grandstand

Richard

fta keith wrote:

Remember RTE's version of grandstand called sports stadium which was axed with no outpouring of memories like grandstand

and also ITV's World of Sport...

icdg

Sports Stadium - Indeed - most notable for its theme music being an instrumental version of Europe's "The Final Countdown"! Nearly ten years now since that went, twelve years after ITV's version World of Sport left the air. Grandstand was the last of that breed.

As I said elsewhere, one of the things about Sport Stadium (which was actually a longer programme than Grandstand, in that it typically ran from 12 noon or thereabouts all the way to 6pm!) was that it took its UK racing coverage from what seemed to be an off-air feed of Grandstand. Hence it was a semi-regular occourance for the Grandstand studio to appear after a race, with Steve Rider or Des Lynam in the chair, before the director would cut rather quickly to the RTÉ studio with Fred Cogley or Peter Collins.

Sports Stadium never had a fight going on the background (apparently an April Fool's prank) though!!!!

DMC

They cottoned on to that after a while in later years. When they used to return from a British race on Sport Stadium, they would show up the SP, and RTÉ would freeze the screen, so as to give themselves some time to gather their thoughts, in case the BBC broke away early

The only racing that gets this treatment from RTÉ nowadays is the Aintree Grand National and the Cheltenham Festival, but even at that, they send over Robert Hall and Ted Walsh, it wouldn't take that much more for RTÉ to do an entire live OB from the Gloucestershire course now, rather than pull the entire Ch4 feed.